goodbye beulah marion mollins

Aunt Beulah mugging for the camera in 1961, just around the time I first met her.

Beulah died this morning at 6 a.m.

Last night, as we said good night to her, she told us that when she closed her eyes it felt as if worlds were brushing over her. It sounded nice.

Tonight, as I close my eyes, memories of this funny, feisty woman will brush over me.

Beulah Marion Mollins devoted much of her life to churchly charities and, in latter years, to serving as a volunteer helper at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital.

It was at Sunnybrook, despite earnest nursing and doctoring, where Beulah passed away on July 18—just 25 days after her 85th birthday.

Beulah was born in North River, Nova Scotia, the first of four children of Vera Grace Nickerson Mollins and Rev. Harry Whitfield Mollins. She was schooled as the family moved to Ottawa, then Brantford, Ont., where she began working in banking, a career carried to Toronto, where she later switched to secretarial work.

As a pastime, Beulah, a music lover, was a pianist who often performed publicly as well as at home.

In the latter years of her later life, Beulah spent many pleasing months with fellow retirees and a caring, cheerful, helpful staff in Toronto's Annex Retirement Residence.

In that rest home, and among a sister, a brother, and six bright nieces who knew her as “Birdie,” “Ant” or “Bunny,” Beulah Mollins is much missed.

The guestbook at the Globe and Mail.

The guestbook at the Toronto Star.